Follow this blog with bloglovin

Followers

Please respect my

All work exhibited here is my own design, unless otherwise stated, in which case I shall have credited the original author of that work. I am thrilled to be able to share my designs with you but would appreciate that you respect that these are my designs and do not copy and place them anywhere else online or use them for your own personal gain in any way.

Google Website Translator Gadget

Monday, 29 January 2018

I started with a sheet of plain white card which I inked up with Tim’s Distress Oxides, and then spritzed with water to give that watercolour effect. I love these, and with any luck set 3 should be winging it’s way to me this week! Wish he would hurry up and release them all. I would not have bought the original DI’s if these had been available at the same time, or at least not the full set. Storage is a nightmare for so many inkpads and the originals aren’t much use for actually stamping, although these are, and these just seem to blend so much easier than the originals. These also give that lovely ‘chalky look’. Can you tell I love them?

I diecut out the centre of a 6” scalloped card with Spellbinders Adorning Squares. I have had this die for years and never used it!!!! I am sure that’s like 99% of us and not at all unusual. Anyhow this is one of those dies that you can cut in lots of different ways, and according to the packaging you can mix and match to create 20+ designs. I nearly gave this away last week, lol, so glad I didn’t because Now I have actually bothered to use it, I can see it popping up again soon.

I then created a square thin frame from my inked background and put another slice of it behind the apeture I had die cut into my card. Popping the diecut back in, having die cut the centre from that too. I’m really annoyed with myself, I swear it was dead centre when I popped it back in, but because there are so many ‘little areas’ that could stick back up I placed it under a heavy weight and left it to set…. and at that stage I think it might have shifted slightly so that it’s now slightly too far over to the right. Because the intricacy of the design is part of the overall design I didn’t feel I could cover up my mistake with something. I did try a few combinations of things but it detracted from the inky centre which was to have the butterfly on it.

I added the frame I had previously cut on foam pads, and having lift the butterflies wings stuck it down and added a row of gems for it’s body.

I like the way you can just catch hints of all the different colours through the diecut areas and the larger square area revealed in the centre.

Monday, 22 January 2018

Our challenge today at Dream Valley is Love. The year goes so fast and Valentine’s Day is only just around the corner less than a month away already. Anyhow, we had some images from Paper Nest Dolls to play with and I chose Ellie with Heart Balloons.

I started with a blank 6” scalloped card and die cut into the centre of it a Tonic Verso Die from the Affections range called First Crush, which struck me as rather appropriate for the image. I printed Ellie onto watercolour card and coloured her with Albrecht Durer pencils. The glitter hearts are the ‘waste’ from a Memory Box heart shaped die full of tiny hearts. I stuck the same coloured glitter card to the back of the diecut areas. The small patterned mat is from Stamping Unicorn’s Butterfly Dreams paper pad. The sentiment die is from Alexandra Renke. I coloured it with spectrum sparkle pens to tone in with the glitter accents as I couldn’t think how to cut it from two different coloured glitter papers without it looking obvious. A|so it’s a very fine and delicate diecut and I wasn’t sure it would cope with rough glitter paper.

I am starting to worry that in my old age I have turned all girly. I don’t ususally use pinks, and this is my third card that has had this or a very similar shade of pink in it…. I must try harder to avoid pink next time around, lol

Monday, 15 January 2018

Our first challenge for 2018 over at Crafty Cardmakers is ‘Bling’s The Thing’. We would love to see any project you fancy provided it has lots of lovely bling, so that could be glitter, as I have done, gems, pearls, or any manner of sparkly thing you can think of.

I must apologise for the slight blur on my photo. It’s a nightmare trying to get a photograph of glitter/mirri card, and I, of course, combined them both!!!

My die cut is brand new and from Tonic and is called Live the Life You Imagined, which is what I want to do this year with my crafting! In reality of course I’d like Michael Buble to come and whisk me off my feet, but that ain’t gonna happen so I will stick with making sure I craft regularly instead!!! Anyhow enough waffling, I die cut it from turquoise mirri card and stuck it down over silver glitter card. I inlaid/paper pieced seome embossed hot pink mirri card into the flowers, the butterfly’s wing and also picked out the word ‘you’ in the sentiment to make it pop out more.

The whole thing is matted onto more turquoise mirri and a 7” scalloped card.

I need to get the vacuum out now as my carpet is a combination of slivers of pink and turquoise mirri. Very pretty, but don’t want to tread it all around my bungalow.

Monday, 8 January 2018

Well that’s 4 months I wouldn’t want to repeat in a hurry. Around about August last year I had a fit and decided I needed to remodel my bedroom/craftroom as the mess in there was driving me nuts. Here I am 4 months later with a lovely new craft space and my bed moved into the lounge.

I will hopefully make a post later with before and after pics, but for now to the matter in hand. My first post in ages and of 2018 is on behalf of Dream Valley and our ‘Anything Goes’ challenge.

We were all given a few lovely Fabrika images to choose from and I picked Winter Fairy. I did actually remove a bird that she had on her shoulder as I preferred it without, and that, of course, is the beauty of digital images, you can manipulate them to remove bits, flip them, enlarge them etc.

I coloured her in with copics and promarkers. I made an ombre combination of the colours in the fairy to the scrolls and swirls surrounding her. Some of them I added glamour dust to, and some I left alone. I also added some white dots in her hair with a sharpie marker.

I matted her onto some blue glitter card, and then onto the white linen card I had printed her onto, and again onto more blue glitter and more white linen. The lovely detailed pink glitter frame surrounding the image was cut with an Intricut die I got from Hobbycraft, their own make. I had to cut one of the patterns out of each side along the length to make it fit the image without gaps, but one half of that I have hidden under the sentiment, and the other half, I hope your eye is not drawn to. The birthday sentiment was from Crafters Companion’s birthday exclusive bundle and is a transfer, which I foiled onto with foil that matched the glitter card.

It feels really good to be back crafting, instead of living in a war zone of boxes, more of that later, and I am looking forward to 2018 being a much more creatively productive year than 2017 was.

In the time I have been away from blogging I have lost over 2 and 1/2 stone with a combination of my own start and Weight Watchers and my hip has gotten progressively worse. I sincerely hope when I see the Physio this week that she will tell me I am well on course with my weight loss for hip replacement surgery. Cancel that, due to the crisis in the NHS that’s exactly what they did,, cancelled my appointment.

LinkWithin

About Me

I'm a well past her sell by date pagan. I have a gorgeous grown up Daughter, and I love nothing better than a spot of colouring. Pens, pencils, inks, chalks, you name it, I love them all. I have a naughty sense of humour and am definitely on the nutty side, hence the 'cracked' reference in my title.
I am proud to be a design team member for The ABC Challenge, Dream Valley Challenge, and Lexi's Creations. I was one of the founding members of Sheena Douglass' Design Team and I now run The Crafty Cardmakers challenge blog. When I'm not doing any of that I am either being pestered by my lovely dog Poppy, or sleeping!